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Bottle Trouble

QUESTION:

My wife and I are newlyweds and just had our baby girl that is just shy of 2 months. My wife is committed to breastfeeding and was pumping before so that I would be able to help her with feedings. Now she is not pumping but feeding our little one right from her.

The result is that she is now complaining that she's not getting enough sleep and taking it out on me. I would feed her from the bottle again, but our little one refuses to take the bottle when I try to give her one. After trying for 10-15 minutes, I'm forced to wake up my wife which begins the cycle all over again.

What should I do?

ANSWER:

"When new moms do not get enough sleep, they get irritable and irrational." A new dad with a six week old just told me that in regards to his experience with breastfeeding. You and your wife's previous strategy of pumping so she could get some sleep has become a popular one and was apparently working for you.

Since the baby is doing fine with the breastfeeding, the solution is to convince your tired, irritable and irrational wife that pumping = sleep. If she does this, you will need to reintroduce the bottle to the baby, which will be frustrating at first; just sticking it in her mouth won't work since she is now used to something quite different.

Start with a hungry baby by rubbing the bottle nipple on her lips. When she starts sucking on the top part of the nipple, pull it back out, and then let her suck it in again, and repeat a few times until she sucks the whole nipple in and gets locked on.

You can also try rubbing the tip of the nipple on the roof of her mouth, which stimulates her sucking reflex. After a few times, both you and your baby will have the bottle feeding down pat. Good luck and let me know how it works out.

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